Daily Digest 10/10 - The End Of The Future, U.S. Incomes Keep Falling, Miner's Stocks Glisten On Mongolia's Gold Backdown

• Dear Occupy Wall Street: Focus on the People
• The End Of The Future
• Recession Officially Over, U.S. Incomes Kept Falling
• US and Nato 'far from goals' in Afghanistan
• We Are The 99 Percent - Even Rich People
• Merkel Aims to Sign Rare Earths Deal With Mongolia Next Week
• Miner's stocks glisten on Mongolia's gold backdown
• Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All

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Economy

Dear Occupy Wall Street: Focus on the People (Jaime)

We will know that real change is taking place once Bill Black is put in charge of cleaning up the mess on Wall Street. There is no more qualified individual to do so, given the role he played following the Savings and Loan debacle, and what he has communicated since the crisis and the bailouts of individuals who committed enormous fraud. Bill Black must build the team that investigates the crimes that took place and then prosecutes those parties who broke the law. At the very top of Occupy Wall Street's demands should be that Bill Black be made a special prosecutor to take on the criminal enterprise that has strangled this country.

The End Of The Future (Brock H.)

When tracked against the admittedly lofty hopes of the 1950s and 1960s, technological progress has fallen short in many domains. Consider the most literal instance of non-acceleration: We are no longer moving faster. The centuries-long acceleration of travel speeds — from ever-faster sailing ships in the 16th through 18th centuries, to the advent of ever-faster railroads in the 19th century, and ever-faster cars and airplanes in the 20th century — reversed with the decommissioning of the Concorde in 2003, to say nothing of the nightmarish delays caused by strikingly low-tech post-9/11 airport-security systems. Today’s advocates of space jets, lunar vacations, and the manned exploration of the solar system appear to hail from another planet. A faded 1964 Popular Science cover story — “Who’ll Fly You at 2,000 m.p.h.?” — barely recalls the dreams of a bygone age.

Recession Officially Over, U.S. Incomes Kept Falling (woodman)

The full 9.8 percent drop in income from the start of the recession to this June — the most recent month in the study — appears to be the largest in several decades, according to other Census Bureau data. Gordon W. Green Jr., who wrote the report with John F. Coder, called the decline “a significant reduction in the American standard of living.”

US and Nato 'far from goals' in Afghanistan (jdargis)

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, Gen McChrystal, who commanded coalition forces in 2009-10 before being forced to resign after a magazine interview, said the US and Nato allies were "a little better than" half way to achieving their military goals.

The most difficult task would be to create a legitimate government that ordinary Afghans could believe in and that would balance the influence of the Taliban, he said.

We Are The 99 Percent - Even Rich People (jdargis)

There is an obsession on the left—fueled by Barack Obama’s incompatible twin efforts to close an enormous budget gap and hold families making less than $250,000 per year harmless from tax increases—with soaking the super-rich. But if you truly believe that the government needs more revenue to provide valuable services, you need to look where the money is, and much of that’s in the top quintile (households making over $111,000) but outside the top 1 percent.

Merkel Aims to Sign Rare Earths Deal With Mongolia Next Week (Nickbert)

Chancellor Angela Merkel will seek to strike a deal on resources with the Mongolian government during a trip to Ulan Bator next week that secures access to rare-earth elements at fair prices, a German government official said.

Mongolia’s potential for rare earths is enormous and Germany is confident of reaching an outline agreement at government level that would allow companies to sign individual contracts ensuring access to the materials, the official told reporters in Berlin today on condition of anonymity because the deal has yet to be struck."

Miner's stocks glisten on Mongolia's gold backdown (Nickbert)

Rio Tinto and its partner in Mongolia, Ivanhoe Mines, have enjoyed strong gains on local and overseas markets after the Mongolian government backed down from its campaign to take a bigger slice of the nation's most lucrative mining project.

The mine is considered the world's biggest untapped copper resource, and will also be one of the world's top 15 gold mines once production hits full tilt."

Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All (jdargis)

“It is not an easy job,” said Kerry Mattics, 49, another H-2A farmer here in Olathe, who brought in only a third of his usual Mexican crew of 12 workers for his 50-acre fruit and vegetable farm, then struggled to make it through the season. “It’s outside, so if it’s wet, you’re wet, and if it’s hot you’re hot,” he said. Still, Mr. Mattics said, he can’t help feeling that people have gotten soft.

“They wanted that $10.50 an hour without doing very much,” he said. “I know people with college degrees, working for the school system and only making 11 bucks.”

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